Riot shares lessons learned from Elemental Rift tests in Wild Rift, to launch 2 new versions in Patch 3.2

One of the most anticipated features coming to League of Legends: Wild Rift is the Elemental Rift.

In this mode, the map contains three dragons: Mountain, Infernal, and Ocean. Slaying them grants a team powerful buffs and souls to aid them in battle. The dragons also affect the map terrain and bring changes to the Rift after being slain.

Since this is a huge change to the game, Riot Games has tested the feature out in the past few updates before a final release. Today, Wild Rift’s game designer Mike “RogueFool” Breese provided an update on the Elemental Rift and also revealed the changes in the next version of the mode.

Breese said Riot aims to find the “sweet spot” for the Elemental Rift where the dragons don’t feel rushed without increasing the game time. He added that giving some time between dragon and Baron fights is also important for Riot to ensure players get a chance to show their individual skills.

Here are three things Riot learned from the past tests.

• Terrain changes: The terrain changes on the second dragon’s death come a bit too late. While Riot hasn’t finalized a timing to fix this, Breese said it would be similar to the changes seen after the first dragon is slain.
• Dragon Soul: The Dragon Soul is one of the most powerful buffs and could make the path toward victory easier for the team that gets it. It’s therefore important that the timing of this buff is not too early, which would cause snowballing, or too late. In the second test, the team that slays two dragons was able to get the Dragon Soul. Breese said this felt a bit too early and put a lot of pressure on teams to get the second dragon, which puts a focus on teamfights, instead of providing breathing room for individual performance.
• Elder Dragon: Breese said the Elder Dragon functions as a “great” game-ending and comeback mechanic. Hence, it shouldn’t be showing up too early. Riot is keeping an eye on its spawn time and could tune it in future updates.

Riot will be testing two versions of the Elemental Rift in the ongoing Patch 3.2 of Wild Rift. The first of these will release on May 16 at 7:01pm CT. In this, each Elemental Dragon will give a single buff that stacks with other dragons’ buffs. Breese explained the reason behind this change is to reduce the individual powers of the dragons. The Elder Dragon will spawn at the 20-minute mark in this version.

Breese also said Riot will continue testing the Elemental Rift and make changes and adjustments to it as needed.